simple question about a term: when the same notes on different octave positions sound together

[jancivil]

<"Incomplete" is not an objective statement, it is forever bound to its context.
It is just a word reflecting a musical convention,>
are the same statement essentially. So that's sorted.
My awareness of all that is pretty dim and faded but I don't imagine 'chord' was a thing then. So it just strikes me as an odd metric for talking about chords in 2021. You seem to like something about it as essential, so fine.

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

Well, to each, their own. I know of one who ever felt harm over the word or felt themselves forced to follow all ideas of Fux beyond an exam. Fux did not try to invent anything with his system,but describe the trends of his time, so the convention about root, third and fifth as definition of a complete harmony may just reflect his own past and not be something within his own power to change. But to me as a composer, it is about composing, nothing else. We cannot understand one chord as more suppressed than the other by name, only by the use of it within the conventions, and no harm seems to be done with mediating chords and substituting chords, they have an important place within classical music already and are deffo important for coloring the music beyond the sound of complete triads, so no harm done to chords or anyone or anything else. If there are problems with music theory, it is due to those who use it and how it is used. A hammer can be used as a weapon, but it does not hammer someone in the head on its own.

[jancivil]

I'm just saying the one thing: a writer in a time before chords with names strikes me as an odd metric for the definition of these things, that hadn't happened. I'm not arguing with Fux or any of that, at all, in its lane. I went for a faster lane.
The discussion that ensued only follows from bringing in the necessity of 'the second note' in that 3 (or more) note construction - ie., the third - in 2021 to someone looking for a consensus definition of 'chord'. C D G can be named, "2 chord on C", pretty simply so it's a chord.

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

But wait...there is an example, I can relate to better. At gearslutz, I have more than once seen someone open a music theory thread with the question: "Am I allowed to do X?" or "Can I do this or that when...X?" . You probably know such around here too. Then people start to answer out in the blue air: "yes or no, you can do this and that but not this and that". And my simple question is: Who is the authority you are asking and in what context?". My short answer is that you can do anything you want, and unless you aim for making music of a specific time or style or passing an exam, why should people follow any conventions at all? People sometime act as if the snippets of theory they have got are universals that just works for everybody in every context, and here my advice is that they should rather stay clear of theory than concieving it as such. This is an example where I think people are not beyond the composer childhood disease and then even I recommend to let it be.

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

I'm just saying the one thing: a writer in a time before chords with names strikes me as an odd metric for the definition of these things that hadn't happened. I'm not arguing with Fux or any of that, at all, in its lane. I went for a faster lane.

Okay, but his definitions of harmonies went into our modern definitions of chords, and that is probably why he still is one solid way into it from the standpoint of classical composition. But all his theory is about triads, so you will have to change path when moving ahead anyway. He says nada about tetras, so bye-bye Fux when moving into particularly Romanticism and beyond.

[jancivil]

"People sometime acts as if the snippets of theory they have got are universals..."
Agreed. You can't say 'rather stay clear of theory' and not get real blowback here tho. I have said "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing; operative word 'little'". Because people think things are possibly illegal and actually try to argue it.

Consider that one Bach example, it can't be reasonably shoehorned into functional Roman Numeral analysis or you have this tortured 'viiº7 of ii', and its voicing is root position (unconventional?) with a lot of unconventional doubling. He did it for the shock of the crowd voting for Barabas instead of the Christ. No one expects it.

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

Exactly, now you mention it, and that adds to my point: As far as Fux' authority goes, look at Mozart and Bach who were trained by the book but screwed him from behind on several occasions about the hidden fifths or parallel octaves. Or even worse, in Dies Irea, Mozart goes for major seconds in the bass as part of a mediator. Fux would have had a heart attack.

[jancivil]

Yep. There're 7th chords (I mean jazzy major 7ths) which do not resolve or do anything but be pretty in JS Bach as well, even 9ths chords.
somehow I didn't have 'Mozart fifths' as a concept when I got a 96 on my final, but the missing 4 points are hidden fifths in a German 6th to V move.
If you see that in JS Bach, same hidden fifths law broken. Whoever made that rule didn't take that move into consideration, as it is the conventional move being the only move nonetheless.

[TribeOfHǫfuð]

And as the story of the consecutive fifths goes. When all came to an end, Fux seemed to have made up a rule of his own. Actually, the rule is already given in his definition of counterpoint. Fux noted in his intro that he owed great thanks to Palestrina and made the impression that his rules were derived from him in particular. However, as Jeppesen later revealed; Fux' knowledge of Palestrina was restricted because many works were not found or available at the time. And when Jeppesen analysed the works, he found no such heavy restrictions on fifths or octaves, particularly, but of course a minor emphasis on parallel movements as such, no matter intervals, appearently to keep the individual voices apart in Palestrina's strictly polyphonic music. When composers make musical jokes, Fux is also a natural born target. These fifths have had a great impact for no other reason than Fux' imagination, but also brought great fun like "In which positions, can we avoid parallel movements, when we do the deed?" and the following discussions. Childish stuff among young composer-wannabees, you can imagine.